August 05, 2013

Inspector General to Investigate Keystone XL House of Cards

Last
Friday the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General confirmed that it will investigate evidence that the agency violated
ethics guidelines when it hired an oil industry consultant to draft the Keystone
XL environmental impact statement This evidence adds to the growing criticism
that the State Department’s conclusion, which minimizes the Keystone XL’s profound
impact on U.S. carbon pollution, is based on a faulty and biased review. In
fact, the tar sands pipeline is a climate disaster waiting to happen.

In April and again in July, the Sierra Club and partner groups presented evidence
of ethics violations by State and their consultant, ERM. We requested that the Office
of the Inspector General investigate how and why the State Department hired ERM
despite the company’s close ties to TransCanada, the company behind the
pipeline proposal, and to the American Petroleum Institute, the industry lobbying
group that is leading PR efforts to promote the pipeline and an organization of
which ERM is a dues-paying member.

ERM was
legally obliged to disclose both its connection to Big Oil as well as any way
in which it might financially benefit from completion of Keystone XL. But ERM
failed to disclose its conflicts of interest, and the State Department failed
to verify ERM’s assertions that it had no interest in the outcome of the
pipeline decision. When these conflicts first appeared in documents that
demonstrated the connections between ERM employees and oil companies that would
benefit from the Keystone XL, the State Department redacted these biographies on
its website in an attempt to conceal the connections from the public.

This
situation is, sadly, a repeat of the State Department’s hiring of
Cardno-Entrix, another “conflicted” oil industry consultant, which the department
hired to draft the 2011 environmental review of Keystone XL. An Inspector General
investigation of that process concluded in 2012 that the consultant was biased and
went on to recommend that the State Department redesign its process to ensure
that consultants who might profit from a decision are not in charge of the
environmental review for that decision. The State Department clearly ignored that
recommendation that the fox should not guard the henhouse.

So it’s not surprising, with ERM as the primary author, that
in spring 2013 State put forward yet another distorted draft environmental
review that dismissed the critical climate, human health, and environmental
threats posed by the proposed pipeline. The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency saw straight through the rouse when it issued a failing grade to the
review for “insufficient
information” on greenhouse gas emission, pipeline safety, and community and
environmental justice effects. Each of these are important factors in the
review of a project that promises to deliver massive amounts of carbon
pollution and air and water pollution for communities near refineries and along
the pipeline route.

In the 2013 draft environmental review, State and ERM dismiss
some of the project’s most significant environmental concerns, such as its climate
impacts, asserting that the development of Alberta tar sands is inevitable and that
Keystone XL won’t have a direct bearing on climate pollution. They also ignore concerns
about air and water pollution, human health and safety, wildlife, and the
rights of landowners. There is no shortage of evidence that the report’s assumptions
are wrong. The Sierra Club and our partners presented a long list of the
problems with the pipeline and with the review processboth in our April 2013 comments and in a recent request
for a new review based on new information from government, oil industry, and
Wall Street sources that undermine the State Department’s conclusions. We also
filed a lawsuit
to make sure that the public has access to all of the information about
Keystone XL and the hiring of ERM before the State Department reaches its
decision.

The real
question here is how did State get it so wrong? The answer, simply, is that the
State Department once again hired the oil industry to evaluate itself -- and,
not surprisingly, the industry gave itself a passing grade. But
we’ve come a long way since this pipeline was first proposed in 2008. We’ve
built opposition to this dirty and dangerous pipeline into a national movement.
Americans recognize a bad deal when they see one, and now that they are getting
a better look at this one, it’s looking less like some kind of favor from our
friends to the north and more like a house of cards.

The State Department needs to go back to the drawing board. It
needs to listen to the Office of the Inspector General this time and stop hiring
consultants with deep oil-industry ties. It needs to look at the facts about
this pipeline and the threat it poses to the climate and to the American
people. Even the pro-pipeline consultants drafting this tainted review couldn’t
hide the fact that the pumps that would be used to move tar sands across the
U.S. alone would create as much carbon pollution each year as is
produced by 626,000 cars. That doesn’t even scratch the surface of the harm
that the Keystone XL pipeline would bring, but that’s all you need to know to
see that the pipeline will “significantly exacerbate” climate pollution.

It doesn’t really matter which card you pull when you want
to bring down a house of cards. The Keystone XL proposal is teetering with
false assumptions, biased information, and a shaky conclusion that won’t
withstand even the slightest breeze of scrutiny. Secretary Kerry and President
Obama have everything they need right now to conclude that this pipeline fails
the “national interest” test. It’s time for the State Department to get the oil industry
out of the business of reviewing its own projects on behalf of the American
people. And it’s time to reject this dirty, dangerous pipeline once and for
all.

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